Starland Vocal Band

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Starland Vocal Band were an American pop band, known primarily for "Afternoon Delight", one of the biggest-selling singles in 1976.

1 Career
2 Discography
3 Cultural references
4 External links

[edit] Career

The group began as 'Fat City', a husband/wife duo of Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert.

The band was also composed of Jon Carroll (keyboards and vocals) and Margot Chapman (vocals). Carroll and Chapman were also married after meeting as members of the group, but later divorced. They had one son, Ben Carroll, who is also a musician.

Their debut album was the self-titled Starland Vocal Band, which included "Afternoon Delight". The song was a hit, reaching #1 and the album also charted. They were nominated for five Grammy Awards and won two — Best arrangement (voices) and Best New Act. The follow-up album Rear View Mirror was a failure in comparison, although it was a minor chart entry, spending 13 weeks on the Billboard 200 (reaching a peak of #104).

The band hosted a self-titled variety show that ran on CBS for six weeks in the summer of 1977. David Letterman, then unknown, also participated in the show, as did Mark Russell, Jeff Altman, and Proctor and Bergman.

The band broke up in 1981, unable to match their previous success. Danoff and Nivert divorced shortly afterwards.

Each of the band members went on to a solo career.

As recently as 1998 Starland Vocal Band has reunited for a few concerts, often featuring the children of the four original members as vocalists. In 2007, they appeared on a 1970s special on the New Jersey Network (NJN), singing "Afternoon Delight".

Danoff and Nivert co-wrote the hit song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" with John Denver. Denver subsequently signed them to his label, Windsong Records.

[edit] Discography

Albums

1976 Starland Vocal Band
1977 Rear View Mirror
1978 Late Night Radio
1979 4 X 4

Singles

1976 Afternoon Delight/California Day (Windsong Records GB-10943) Windsong 10588

[edit] Cultural references

In The Simpsons episode "'Round Springfield", Homer Simpson suggests that Lisa get a tattoo of Bleeding Gums Murphy (who died after Lisa performed "Stars and Stripes Forever" at school) just like he did with Starland Vocal Band (to which Homer realizes his mistake and says that the band sucked). Another Simpsons episode (The Fat and the Furriest) had Lenny, Carl, and Bart dance to and sing Afternoon Delight as Homer gets attacked by a bear.
In the Adult Swim airing of the Family Guy episode Stewie Kills Lois, Meg is on her bed in her pajamas, listening to Afternoon Delight while stroking a pack of hot dogs and declaring that the hot dogs would be the New York Knicks (The FOX airing has Meg in her normal clothes outside her room with the hot dogs in hand).
Taffy Danoff has been heard on the Washington, DC morning radio show, Elliot in the Morning on DC101. She has said that the members of Starland Vocal Band received a one-time payment for recording "Afternoon Delight", and receive no royalties for the song.
In the motion picture Good Will Hunting, the main character Will Hunting is forced to visit a hypnotherapist. At first he pretends to be under hypnosis by telling a youthly trauma, but soon he converts his story into the lyrics of Afternoon Delight and finishes by singing it, showing he was pretending to be hypnotised.
In the movie PCU, Jeremy Piven's character selects the Starland Vocal Band's CD from a group and puts it into the player on repeat and then locks the entertainment center forcing the party goers to hear it over and over again.
Afternoon Delight has been played in Frat Pack films such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Starsky & Hutch.